Mine is really interested in an EA school so he will apply to a few other EA schools also (as long as they are not restrictive) but no ED.
Mine has 3 EA schools that she likes but she may decide to ED to her first choice. I would prefer for her to have options in the spring… a lot can happen between now and March/April. Like, one could change one’s mind…
Best of luck to i70sSon. The process of applying to the service academies is much more involved and lengthy than applying to civilian colleges. Our son was on top of it all, and it still took almost a full year as many of the components cannot be rushed and several parts are not under the applicant’s timing control. Just the process of applying for a nomination includes essays, interviews, test scores, transcripts, and LORs and that’s just the first gate; without a nomination, the application dies and never makes it to the admissions pool. Then, there’s the DODMerB (medical) physical along with passing a rather brutal fitness assessment. Only if a candidate secures a nomination from a member of congress (or the Pres or VP) and is deemed 3Q (qualified academically, medically, and physically) will the application move to the admissions pool (and the academy application is separate from the nomination application). There are more moving parts to this process than Excel has columns and rows.
Our son did what i70sSon is doing–selected only colleges with strong engineering programs and on-campus A/NROTC (didn’t care for the chair force). But, he did not apply for the ROTC scholarships. He simply said if he didn’t get into Army or Navy the first time, he’d attend our local flagship and keep trying until he did although he was accepted to a couple of schools we still wish had been his plan A. Oh well, he’s now a corporal and doing very well at WP, studying electrical engineering, rowing varsity crew, and running his two Plebes (Thing 1 and Thing 2) ragged. He blew up a lot of stuff this summer and enjoys flying in helicopters and annihilating targets with automatic weaponry. Not sure how we produced this kid when we didn’t even allow him to have water guns. Maybe that had something to do with it? Who knows.
It’s a long haul, as you know, @i70sband. Keep us posted. This is not a typical path for a BS kid but I’m sure there are others here (well, maybe one, possibly two) who will benefit from what you post here.
@ChoatieMom I’ve gotten the impression that the skids in the process are greased for highly recruitable athletes/ Is that true or is my perception wrong?
As an aside, I’m rather surprised at that given @ChoatieMom 's self-professed laissez-faire parenting. 
No clue. I do know that all applicants, athletes or not, must meet the 3Q bar, no exceptions. Army and Navy both have prep schools where an attractive candidate who needs a bit more academic preparation might be invited to attend for a year prior to entering the academy. At the end of the prep year, the candidate is again evaluated before potentially being offered admission. Some athletes and many prior enlisted go this route.
The SAs evaluate applicants based on a whole candidate score (WCS) consisting of academics, fitness, and leadership. No single pillar will get you in, but any pillar that is lacking will keep you out. It’s a very different evaluation and process.
I may have allowed him to run amuck all his little life, but he was not allowed to run with guns.
I am the opposite. Well, there were no toy guns but lots and lots of water guns (birthday gifts I think). I also hesitated a bit but sent the boys to shooting outings with scouts since 10 years old. A scout mom told me that it is best to be trained on gun safety and have experiences handling guns. She told me that since guns are available and everywhere, (benefits of living in Wild West and Make my day law state) if they see one the first time, their natural tendency would be to touch it. Best to demystify and learn to respect. A few scounts (even 10 year olds) do own their own rifles here. Although DS class of 19 earned both Rifle & Shotgun shooting merit badges and enjoys going to shooting outings, fortunately my kids never had a desire to own a gun.
On that cheerful light note,
Good luck to all seniors taking ACT test tomorrow!
(Highly recommend ACT given all the college board troubles.)
ChoatieCadet earned NRA sharpshooter status at 12 (thanks to Boy Scouts ). He is the expert marksman in his company. From Beast last year, he sent us a paper target with the center shot out in a perfect hole (38 hits out of 40 shoots). He was totally bummed that after that practice he was not allowed to shoot anymore. Evidently, the Army does not like to waste ammunition.
Moral of the story: Kids. Can’t control 'em.
FWIW Tufts will have a T-Stop on campus functioning in 2020 - a straight shot to MIT and in the meantime there is a bus to the T stop in Davis Square( which is also just a short walk from campus).
Tufts is very well liked by both my progeny, @chemmchimney , but 2020 is a long way off!! (Actually, #1, a new Jumbo, will graduate that year. He seems to be off to a happy start in Tilton, though he got one of the L-shaped mini-rooms. His room karma never has been all that good, but he doesn’t complain.)
Go Jumbos! I was in Houston - typical cinder block freshman dorm, but never minded, and then lived in one of the smaller housey dorms my remaining years.
Cinder block was standard, and it didn’t make a bit of difference to me either. The outside environment and the general aesthetics of that was important to me, though.
Son is SO pleased to have moved on from the BS dorm scene to the collegiate – freedom from school-level rules and women on the floor!
I need to vent for a bit. SoxBoy is driving me nuts with regard to his safety schools (yes, I know this is no longer the preferred term, and one is supposed to use “likely” instead, but I’m venting here, so cut me some slack). His “possible” and “reach” lists all make a lot of sense - you look at the list and see immediately what kind of schools he’s considering, and there aren’t any weird “one of these things is not like the other” inclusions. But of the four schools he tentatively has on the safety list, none of them have much in common with each other, and only one of them is of the same ilk as the schools on his reach and possible lists.
He doesn’t even really know anything about these schools, and when I suggest that he find out more or that this is sort of an odd mix, I get a lot of silence. I’ve also suggested other schools that fit better with the reach/possible schools, but with lower scores and GPA averages, but he’s not terribly receptive to that either. He’s also not interested in going to visit any of these schools, which is frustrating too. I’m not a huge proponent of the college visit for various reasons, but if you’re going to take the time and effort to visit some schools, I would think it’s more important to see some of the potential safety schools than to visit the schools he already knows are high on his list and aren’t actually going to be affected one way or the other.
Further annoying me is that two schools on his list are identified by his college counselor as being “possibles” when I would say that the stats strongly suggest they could be viewed as likelies. Naviance data shows that these two schools are pretty strongly driven by scores/GPA in their admission decision, and he’s well above in both. I wish we could just cross the stray four schools off the list and be done with it, but SoxBoy has decided that everything his college counselor says is as though God had spoken to her from the burning bush, and that his parents couldn’t possibly have any useful perspective.
Sigh.
But @chemmchimney , don’t you think Davis square lost something when Steves left (although I was a joey’s fan myself.)?
@soxmom I know what you mean! We had to have a “difficult conversation” with my kid at the beginning of the college application process. On the one hand, we didn’t want to discredit the college counselor and we want a productive working relationship with him. On the other, we tried to get the kid see things a little more ‘sophisticated’ in that CC was not always right and could have different priorities at different times… But I have a feeling that those 4 safeties on her list will not even be relevant in the end. She will likely end up in one of the possibles or the reaches.
@soxmom To me, finding safeties that are a good fit and a place your child would be happy with attending is one of the most important factors in the college list. Have you checked to see if his safeties want to see “demonstrated interest”? If so, a visit could help in that regard. It could also help with writing supplemental essays particularly of the “why this school?” variety. I think you are right in being concerned about your son’s inability to articulate why he likes his safeties. Are his choices for safeties more known/popular amongst his classmates? Some students fall into the trap of not wanting to apply to a school not well known by peers, which I think is a mistake, so wind up applying to safeties just because of name recognition or popularity instead of fit.
Is he applying EA anywhere?
I’d listen to what the college counselor has to say about pegging a school as a likely vs a safety. I found my kids’ counselors to be pretty spot on with that stuff. Remember, they have more data to access in making the decision than you do. They can see behind the numbers on naviance - the profiles of who got in and who didn’t - urm, athlete, legacy, full pay or not, etc. They can also see if those results are from last year or 3 years ago. College admissions is a moving target and many schools have become much more selective in just the past 2-3 years which might not be reflected in the more macro level view you have access to.
@doschicos, oddly enough two of the safeties on his current list are not schools well known among his peers. Indeed, one of them I did t even know what state it’s in. On the other, literally the only thing I know about it is where it’s located, and that only because the name is a giveaway.
And I hear you on the point of the college counselors knowing more about who really gets in to the schools, and therefore being better able to assess where to peg a school for your kid. But I still think her suggestions on safeties are just weird – at one, SoxBoy’s GPA is a full point higher (on a 12 point scale) than any other kid who’s ever applied there from his school, and at another his SAT score is almost 100 points (on a 1600 scale) higher than the next highest applicant. That would be one thing if those schools offered some particular program or speciality that he wants and is hard to find, but given that he wants to major in “either a science or the humanities, I’m not sure which,” I have to believe there are some schools he can be pretty much assured of getting into that are closer to his academic profile. I hope that doesn’t sound snobby, but he’s pretty intellectually serious, so these things matter to him.
So far, we haven’t spoken directly to his counselor yet, other than the initial meet and greet last year. I was hoping to stay out of it and wait to speak with her at Parents’ Weekend, but I’m not sure my type A tendencies will let me wait that long.
If I were you, I’d call or email the counselor - or even set up a face to face if you are close enough. I think its fair to ask for feedback on the categorizations.
I also believe that a parent should get a “parent’s choice”, @soxmom, so feel free to throw in a school you want him to apply to.